The complicated and coordinated systems that make mobile communication possible, for example, using the ubiquitous mobile telephones, are so generally reliable that most users in highly industrialized countries take their availability for granted. Indeed, most users are made aware of the sophisticated infrastructure behind such systems only on infrequent occasions, for example, when their mobile phone connection is lost in an area of poor coverage, or in boundary zones between cells, or they cannot connect at all because of an unusually high temporary load on the system.
Of course, reality sometimes drastically disrupts such complacency. Disasters, both natural and human-caused, often disable the communications networks many rely on. For example, mobile and fixed telephone systems are often either overloaded or disabled altogether in areas hit by earthquakes, floods, terrorist attacks, etc. Furthermore, other users, such as military personnel in the field, may not have access to the local communications network at all, or may not want to have to rely on vulnerable links to satellite ground stations.
As distressing as system disruption may often be for civilians in affected areas, it often also hinders the ability of emergency personnel to operate most effectively, which may make matters even worse. Aware of this, several companies and authorities have developed both equipment and standards for secondary, often mobile networks that are substantially self-reliant and can be deployed rapidly and are particularly suited for enabling communication between members of a group who need to coordinate work on a common task.
In disaster or other emergency situations, there will usually be some need to prioritize access to the limited resource that such mobile systems represent. One example of prioritization might be, in descending order of priority: executive leadership and policy makers; disaster response and military command and control; public health, safety and law enforcement command; public services, utilities and public welfare; and disaster recovery.
Of course, the prioritization scheme—if any is implemented at all—will depend on the situation. Regardless of the scheme, however, in any highly stressful situation, not knowing whom one can or cannot call can have serious or at best undesirable consequences. An additional complication is that, in circumstances such as disasters, in battle zones, etc., the various members of the group who need to communicate with each will often not be known to each other in advance, but to establish communications between two members of the group using mobile telephones, at least the telephone numbers must be known.
Moreover, the roles that persons are carrying out, or their positions in some hierarchy of authority or prioritization, may be as important or even more important than who they are. For example, knowing that a particular mobile phone is associated with a paramedic as opposed to a fire fighter, police officer, search specialist, etc., or with a division commander as opposed to a line officer, will often be more important than knowing their names.
One way to provide the necessary information to the various members of the group would be to have some external information service that could provide contact information to interested parties. Even if it were possible to set up such a service in the event of disruption of established primary networks, however, relaying the retrieved contact information would still cause a delay that might be unacceptable for emergency efforts on the ground. Moreover, in the field of mobile telephony operating according to, for example, the Global System for Mobile (GSM) and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) standards, typically only the priority class of the mobile phone itself is stored in the network in conjunction with its International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI), which is a unique number associated with the network mobile phone users—the IMSI is stored in the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) in the phone and is transmitted by the phone to the network. This will normally not be enough information for, for example, relevant emergency personnel.
In any emergency situation the ability to know which mobile belongs to which person, and in particular the role (paramedic, fireman, policeman, search specialist, etc.) they are carrying out at a disaster site will help facilitate communications on the ground, thereby adding to the overall effectiveness of the aid effort. Also, knowing which of these personnel is nearest to your present location is also vital in situations where time is a critical factor.
International Application No. PCT/IB2003/005250, published 17 Jun. 2004 as Publication No. WO/2004/051976, “Automatic Notification of Personal Emergency Contacts From a Wireless Communications Device,” Inventors: Brian Esque, et. al., assigned to Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB discloses a system that sends emergency notification messages to a designated personal emergency list in an emergency scenario. The information and relevant access capability is stored in the wireless communication device. Although this may be relevant to the person that owns a mobile device, it is not relevant to the activities undertaken by emergency personnel.
United States Published Patent Application No. 2005/0245232 A1, entitled “Emergency response mission support platform,” inventors Robert Jakober, et al., published 3 Nov. 2005, relates to a system that deals with the amalgamation of emergency data for use by situation managers. A process is proposed that involves a knowledge-sharing environment that can facilitate easier and more efficient sharing of information between emergency organizations. The proposal does not deal with establishment of connections/calls between individuals and as such does not provide any mechanism for. Moreover, it is assumed that all emergency personnel will use some sort of user name and password to log into the system to gain access to available information. There is no provision for automatic distribution of roles each person has in the ongoing emergency activities or solutions for mobile network support in such scenarios.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,021,327, “Mobile communication system having improved visitor location register” (inventors: Nhut Nguyen, et al., issued 1 Feb. 2000, assignee: Nortel Networks Corporation) discloses a wireless communication system configured as a GSM system, with, among other known components, a mobile switching center (MSC), a visitor location register (VLR) and a visitor location register manager (VLRM). The VLR corresponds to one of the MSCs and stores subscriber information for mobile terminals that are active in corresponding cells. The VLRM downloads, from a home location register (HLR), subscriber information for mobile terminals becoming active within one of a plurality of cells corresponding to the VLR and stores the subscriber information as a VLR record in the VLR. In accordance with the present invention, the VLRM selectively retains VLR records when corresponding mobile terminals becomes inactive within the cells corresponding to the VLR. The VLRM organizes the VLR records based upon a selected priority. Stored on the basis of priority, the VLRM may delete VLR records on the same priority basis. In this '327 patent, priority is preferably based on the “age” of presence in the VLR, that is, it is a function of a time stamp of last activity within any cell respective to the VLR.